Irrigation Fix

We recently did a story on Treasure Valley farmer Von Jensen featuring how he was handling putting in his crops in drier than usual ground. Well, just down the road from Von, farmer Steve Effington is on a tractor preparing ground for a wheat plant. Neighbor Tracy Walton who is spraying today says given the odd winter and spring weather this year, dry conditions now are both good and bad. “Actually with dry ground, a person can work the ground pretty good. It just means you have to start irrigating earlier.” Also this spring, Walton and other farmers in the area are coping with energy exploration going on in the basin. “You can work around them a little bit. They made a few mistakes because they don’t understand farming. It is something you have to deal with but so far they have been pretty good to deal with.” And for the last two years, these farmers have been dealing with a primary irrigation canal failure that has required major repairs during the off-season. Emmett irrigation district superintendent Mike Mitchell says this winter’s repairs are done and the canal is ready for the water to flow. “The floors are a foot thick and there are two layers of steel in the floor, the walls are 8 inches thick and there is and there are two layers of steel in the walls, all tying it together and it’s about 250 yards of concrete all told her it” Overall a good start to 2015 for Gem County farmers.